


The Other Vent Fic

by SilenceIsGolden15



Series: Voltron Oneshots [20]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Autistic Keith (Voltron), Gen, Sensory Overload, Stress, ventfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 07:28:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15747105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilenceIsGolden15/pseuds/SilenceIsGolden15
Summary: College is hard and Keith is stressed.





	The Other Vent Fic

**Author's Note:**

> Just a vent fic based on a conversation I had with a friend. Enjoy my suffering.

“You know you can’t survive purely on caffeine, right?”

Keith raised a defiant eyebrow. He maintained eye contact with his friend for a long moment, then he tilted his head back and chugged the remaining half of his energy drink. 

Pidge rolled her eyes at him. 

“Like you’re any better.” He muttered, crushing the can and tossing it into the recycling can next to their table. 

“I at least eat.” Was her response. Now it was Keith’s turn to roll his eyes before he bent back over his laptop. Barely half a second later Pidge was reaching across the table and pushing it shut, almost squishing his fingers before he yanked them away from the keyboard.

“Keith.” She was giving him a solemn look that he didn’t like. “You. Need. To. Eat.”

“I’m not hungry.” He mumbled and tried to pry his laptop open. Pidge refused to move her hand. 

“Did you eat breakfast this morning?” 

“Do I ever?”

“Keith.”

“I ate dinner last night.”

“That was like 19 hours ago!”

“So?”

Pidge gave him an exasperated look. 

“You don’t eat enough. You don’t drink enough water. You don’t get enough sleep.”

“I know.” He snaps, planting his elbows on the table and burying his head in his hands. “My life is a train wreck. It’s always  _ been _ a train wreck. I  _ know _ , Pidge.”

There was silence between them for just a few seconds too long before Keith sighed and lifted his head.

“I need to finish my essay. It’s due in an hour.”

Pidge reluctantly withdrew her hand, and Keith opened his laptop to resume his essay, carefully avoiding Pidge’s eyes. 

It was 1:30 in the afternoon, and people were flooding the room for the lunch rush. There was noise everywhere, people chattering and feet scraping over the concrete floor. A woman at the nearby fast food restaurant was calling out numbers, and everytime she repeated herself Keith twitched. 

He hated crowds. He hated noise and chatter and just… people. His fingers tapped anxiously over the keys, not actually pressing any of them and staring at the flashing cursor. His head hurt and he was tired. His head  _ always  _ hurt and he was  _ always  _ tired. The noise and people were pushing in all around him, the smells of cheap grilled meat from the restaurants were overwhelming and he felt like he couldn’t breathe. The cursor flashed at him. He had two and a half pages left to go and under an hour to write them and it was too loud for him to think.

Pidge said his name and he flinched. Her voice was grating, like someone running their fingernails down the back of his neck and grinding over his skin. 

“Are you ok?”

He couldn’t find his voice to answer, so he just shook his head and shoved his laptop away from him so that he could put his head down on the table. 

He needed to sit up and finish this essay, but he couldn’t find it in him to move. Things were so much quieter with his arms around his ears, much nicer with his eyes closed. He flinched again when a chair close by scraped over the floor, and then Pidge’s hand was back, this time on his back. 

At first the touch made him jump and tense up. But the longer she left it there the better it felt, and muscle by muscle, tendon by tendon, he started to relax again. When Pidge spoke she kept her voice quiet, though not to the point of whispering, which would have only made him bristle again. 

“You’ll be alright, Keith. Everything will work out fine.” 


End file.
